The Angry Man
In the sickbay of the Hoosegow, Cdr. Dr. Susan checked her patient while Capt. Paul, Dep. Olivia, Sci. Dep. Joshua, and Cairo Shah stood out of the way at the foot of the patient’s berth. Technically, the berth wasn’t merely a bed, but a medical suspended animation tank. A patient in a tank could remain anesthetized for hours, days, or even months while pharmaceuticals, nanobots, and surgical robots cured them of their illness; or rejuvenated them from old age back to youth; or transformed them from being an ordinary human to being an amphibious Triton. But right now, the tank was the best way to simultaneously shut down the detainee’s psychic abilities and detain the Angry Man.
Dr. Susan said the patient was comfortable and sleeping soundly. Olivia rubbed Joshua’s head and he told her he didn’t feel a constant sense of dread anymore. But Capt. Paul looked in puzzlement at the sleeping woman laying in the tank, and commented, “I thought you said the Angry Man was…a man.”
Cairo looked sheepish and replied, “I said Joshua perceived the Angry Man as male. And I said a psychic doesn’t hear a distant person’s actual voice, which would arguably reveal their gender, but instead only perceives the way they think. There was no way for me to know the Angry Man was actually a woman until I read Cycles-and-Epicycle’s memory of who it saw through a porthole.”
“Alright, alright, I’ll accept that the Angry Man is a woman,” Capt. Paul conceded, reluctantly. “But delegate Mera McCormick’s mousey associate, Agnes Gooch?” The captain stared again at the sleeping woman in the high-technology sarcophagus. “Are you sure?”
Cairo could easily forgive the Captain’s skepticism. There were few more timid, retiring, and forgettable people than Agnes Gooch. In fact, no one Cairo had spoken to could even remember her ever having expressed annoyance, let alone anger.
“So tell me, Mr. Shah,” said Capt. Paul, “how can such a docile person as Agnes Gooch be angry enough to provoke sea monsters into leveling whole cities?”
Cairo paused a moment to consider how to explain. This subject, this person, was worth more than a few glib words or an indifferent explanation. Cairo began, “When you have a difficult decision to make, do you sometimes argue with yourself about which way to go?” The captain nodded agreement, noncommittally. “So, when you’re arguing with yourself,” Cairo continued, with a quizzical expression on his face, “who are you talking to?” Capt. Paul knew what he meant, but didn’t have an answer.
“The theory is, we each have many personas inside of us,” Cairo said. “The main persona is the one we associate with our consciousness; the one we call our ‘true’ self. But other personas rise up and dominate our consciousness depending on the situation. One arises when we’re in danger, are afraid, and have to react quickly. Another comes to the forefront when we have to think critically and make careful judgements or plans.
“Usually our personas act in concert for our benefit. But if a person is mentally ill, one or more of their personas might split off and act in a detrimental way. A disintegrated persona might even have unique physical traits, such as an allergy or stutter, that their true self doesn’t have.
“I suspect Agnes began manifesting psychic abilities at a very young age, perhaps in infancy,” Cairo said. “But without proper psychic training, strange, inexplicable things began to happen whenever Agnes was angry or threw a tantrum. Her family and friends became afraid when those things happened. Trust me, I know. They blamed her, shunned her, feared her—and eventually, struck out at her.”
“Was she…abused?” Dr. Susan asked gravely. “Frightened people can become very violent.”
Cairo looked down and pointedly didn’t answer. He didn’t want to say what he had found rummaging among the tattered memories in the cold, gray still-life that was Agnes Gooch’s comatose mind. For Olivia’s part, her heart was touched, and the expression on her face darkened with concern. Reflexively, she cast Joshua a long, protective gaze.
“I think that’s when the Angry Man was born,” Cairo said. “To protect Agnes, he took all of her anger and hatred, and hid them deep in her subconscious, far from her tormenters’ sight. I think the Angry Man also subsumed and concealed Agnes’ most unique physical trait: her psychic ability. That’s when she outwardly became the studious, innocuous, forgettable person we know today. But the Angry Man never actually went away. Over the years, he grew as she did, but all the while protecting Agnes by containing her never-ending, white-hot, unforgiving hatred and anger for every Aquarian who didn’t save Agnes when she didn’t dare fight to save herself.
“Agnes eventually became an adult and entered politics. She provided essential support in fights against tyrants like Benito Trask, but always timidly, always in the background. Then one day, without Agnes consciously realizing it, the Angry Man—her persona with paranormal abilities—noticed the Sea-Devils, and discovered that he could incite them to exact revenge on the merpeople he hated so much.
“In any case,” Cairo said, concluding his theory about the life of Agnes Gooch, “I think that’s how we’ve come to be here, today.”
Olivia said, “All this suffering, all this destruction, all this sorrow is because of Agnes? I understand, but I cannot in all honesty say it is her fault. Punishing her would not be just, but she is too powerful to simply be let free.”
Cairo knew he would forever be amazed at the contrast between Olivia’s fearsomeness as a lawman, and her boundless compassion. She was like no one he had ever met before.
“The Sword of Orion will arrive in two days,” Cairo said. “That’s why I wanted Ms. Gooch kept comatose in a tank. I’ve contacted the telephone avatar of the Exploration Guild’s commissioner for Aquarius. When the telephone warriors arrive, they’ll transfer Ms. Gooch to one of their standard deep space suspended animation tanks, and later transport her to Earth.
“I know a few people at the New Parapsychology Institute,” he said modestly, downplaying his exceptional reputation in the community of Working Class Telepaths. “The Institute maintains several organizations, including a hospital especially equipped to treat psychics.” Cairo glanced toward Joshua and told Olivia, “The Institute also operates an Academy where young psychics can learn how to use their Talent. That’s where I hope you’ll enroll, Joshua, if his guardians approve.”
Olivia tried to suppress a smile. “This Cairo Shah is a cheeky fellow,” she thought, wryly; not caring one wit if the aquaman read her mind. Cairo returned her droll smile.
Cdr. Dr. Susan was pleased with how this medical case was turning out, but she was concerned about the serious look that lingered on her husband’s face. “Paul, what’s wrong? Isn’t this a good outcome?”
Capt. Paul forced a carefree smile, but he could tell his wife saw right through him. “I couldn’t be happier for Aquarius, Joshua’s peace of mind, and even for the surprising Ms. Gooch. And I’ll be forever grateful for what Cairo did. His bravery and quick wits have greatly improved our situation. But it’s my job to worry about what comes next, and what comes next isn’t clear.”
“Are you worried about the Stay and Exit parties?” Dr. Susan said. “I don’t know if I could bear it if they went back to bickering like schoolchildren.”
“There’s probably no need to worry,” Olivia said, looking at her father as sympathetically as her mother did. “As far as I can tell, ever since the Sea-Devils attacked Sioux City, McCormick and Trask have called a truce and are now thick as thieves. Although I suppose they could have a falling out and go back to their old ways.”
Capt. Paul’s closed-mouthed, skeptical smile slid to one side of his face. “I’m not worried about that happening any time soon. Neither Trask nor McCormick have the moral high ground to lord it over the other. What you and Cairo succeeded in doing has already leaked from government officials to the newsfeeds. People know the Sea-Devils were merely surrogates for who you were really fighting. Benito Trask doesn’t dare try bullying his way to power for fear of seeming too much like the Angry Man. And Mera McCormick can’t claim moral superiority when the Angry Man was hiding in her own party. All Trask and McCormick can do is hold their noses and pretend friendship, while trying to win over the general public to their causes. Good luck with that.”
“In other words, the original stalemate,” Dr. Susan said. “So if that’s not what’s bothering you, dear, then what is?”
“As far as I can see,” he said, “we’re still facing most of our original problems: We’ve made First Contact with an alien species living beneath the waves of what we’ve always considered our own planet. Authorities from the colonized Worlds are coming to Aquarius to meet the aliens, and in the process might evict our colony. And a battalion of unstoppable, implacable, heavily-armed telephone warriors will arrive day after tomorrow to enforce the rule of the Exploration Guild.
“So, what can Aquarius do to solve these problems? What can we marshals aboard the Hoosegow do? What can anyone do?”
In an unconscious gesture, Capt. Paul stroked his webbed fingers through the soft, pale, filaments that had been transmogrified from what on an ordinary human would have been hair. Staring into his wife’s sea-dark eyes, he said, “What worries me, my dear, is that we have worked and suffered so long to make this world our home. But now, are we about to lose that home?”
Quietly, in this private moment when no one else could see, the captain’s family pressed a little closer to him, and gave him their comfort. Feeling excluded from their private moment, Cairo enviously watched the captain and his family.
Shah blamed no one else for the decisions he had made in his life. By and large, he had crafted a good life. But for the first time in a long time of vagabonding around the colonized galaxy, Cairo felt the need for family.
Cairo inhaled deeply and then exhaled an endless breath. In the crowded sick bay, Cairo Shah felt indescribably alone.
Somehow sensing Cairo’s troubled heart, Olivia glanced up, then reached out her hand to the aquaman. He hesitated for a moment, uncertain whether he should accept her proffer. But at last, he took her outstretched hand with its strange webbed fingers, and she pulled him into her shoal of family.
What Cairo had to do next became instantly clear. The Sea-Devils had told him that after they conferred about their humanity conundrum, they would return. Cairo knew that when they did, he would meet them. And he knew that meeting was imminent. He could read faraway thoughts in the shape of Kill-the-Vermin thinking of him. But what he didn’t know, was when he and the sea serpents met again, what would they do?—And what would he?